Ever since the recovery from the Great Recession began more than five years ago, the most crucial missing pieces of the economic puzzle were the lack of consistently strong gains in hiring and better wages for most working Americans struggling to make ends meet. Now, at last, those pieces are […]
(Reuters) – The Federal Reserve is welcoming the sharp drop in global energy prices, with two influential policymakers on Monday cheering the boost it should provide American pocketbooks and shrugging off any pressure on already low inflation. Soft oil prices in particular, which hit a five-year low on Friday, will […]
Jean-Claude Juncker: ”It is a question of getting some new winds blowing through Europe… some fresh air into the structures” European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has given details of a €315bn (£250bn; $393bn) investment plan to kick-start Europe’s economy. At its heart is a new €21bn fund that would provide […]
(Reuters) – China cut interest rates unexpectedly on Friday, stepping up efforts to support the world’s second-biggest economy as it heads towards its slowest expansion in nearly a quarter of a century. The cut, the first in over two years, came as factory growth has stalled and the property market, […]
By Urs Geiser A proposal to reduce Switzerland’s ecological footprint by strict immigration curbs is gaining ground ahead of a nationwide vote on November 30, a poll shows. New rules on gold reserves of the central bank and plans for scrapping lump sum taxation both look likely to fail. An […]
Nov 19 (Reuters) – U.S. housing starts unexpectedly fell in October, but a jump in permits to near a 6-1/2-year high suggested the housing market was steadily regaining strength. Groundbreaking slipped 2.8 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual 1.009 million-unit pace, the Commerce Department said on Wednesday. September’s starts were […]
BBC News: Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has closed the G20 summit by detailing economic pledges agreed by world leaders. The leaders agreed to boost their economies by at least 2.1% by 2018, adding $2 trillion to global economies. Much of the summit focused on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s position […]
theguardian: by Joanna Lillis — Around a million Uzbeks are forced to help harvest the country’s ‘white gold’ every year. Now, students have tentatively begun to speak out against it.EurasiaNet.org reports Public servants are drafted in every year to help harvest the country’s crucial cotton crops. Uzbekistan’s practice of sending forced […]
TOKYO — After insisting for more than a year that its aggressive monetary policy was sufficient to revive Japan’s economy and end deflation, the Bank of Japan on Friday unexpectedly announced that it would increase the amount of money it pumped into the country’s financial markets by buying larger quantities […]
The US economy grew at an annual rate of 3.5% in the July-September quarter, the Commerce Department has said. That was better than the 3% pace that economists had been expecting and follows the 4.6% growth rate recorded in the April-June quarter. Strong export growth and higher government spending helped to […]
(Reuters) – The U.S. Federal Reserve on Wednesday is expected to shutter its bond-buying program, closing one controversial chapter in its crisis response even as it struggles to manage a full return to normal monetary policy. The Fed is likely to announce at the end of a two-day meeting that […]
economist.com: THE announcement this week that China’s economy had grown by 7.3% in the third quarter year-on-year was widely seen as marking the country’s “new normal” of slower growth. It was well below the roughly 10% pace China had averaged from 1980 until two years ago. Yet according to a […]
Four Swiss business schools have appeared in the Financial Times’ ranking of 100 executive MBA (EMBA) programmes, with IMD in Lausanne performing best, climbing four places since last year to 15th. The list, published on Monday, compares programmes for working senior executives and is topped for the first time by […]
allAfrica.com: The devastating effects of climate change are already being felt across the planet, including in Africa. The 2011 drought-induced famine in the Horn of Africa affected more than 10 million people, claimed 257,000 lives and cost over $1 billion in damages. The recent Africa Adaptation Gap report by the […]
allafrica.com: China’s economy faces a slowdown in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to between 2.4% and 5% next year, well below the current 7% IMF estimate, unless the government takes more decisive policy action – warns the Overseas Development Institute, the UK’s leading think-tank on development issues. The report Developing Countries and […]
Russia Today: World wealth has reached a record $263 trillion but is concentrated in fewer hands. The richest 1 percent have accumulated more wealth, and own almost 50 percent of […]
(Reuters) – The U.S. budget deficit fell by nearly a third during fiscal 2014 to $486 billion as federal revenues grew far faster than spending, the Congressional Budget Office said on Wednesday. Releasing preliminary estimates of final budget data for the year ended Sept. 30, the CBO said receipts grew […]
The encouraging September jobs report, which showed unemployment dipping below 6 percent, stole the limelight on Friday, but it is the quiet release of another government report that has presented economists with unexpected fodder for debate. An article, published in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’s Monthly Labor Review, dismissed warnings […]
(Reuters) – U.S. employers ramped up hiring in September and the jobless rate fell to a six-year low, bolstering bets the Federal Reserve will hike interest rates in mid-2015. Friday’s report on employment is the most significant gauge of the economy’s health ahead of Nov. 4 congressional elections. While President […]
USA Today: The protests in Hong Kong are not yet sparking fears that the region will become the next trouble spot for the global economy, but such concerns will grow if the conflict intensifies and ensnares China, economists say. READ MORE…